Sanding staircase: us or the professionals?

all_greek_to_me

Jaynne

Its a lovely staircase and seems to be in very good nick. What sort of colour do you want it to end up? dark as it is now or a light oak?

all_greek_to_me

Jaynne wrote: »

Its a lovely staircase and seems to be in very good nick. What sort of colour do you want it to end up? dark as it is now or a light oak?

Lighter / a bit less orange. We don't want a very light finish, but it's a dark hall, with an awful lot of wood, and is a bit "dreary seventies" at the moment.

Thanks,
all_greek

Jaynne

If time is against you I think you might have a lot of trouble getting all that wood lighter. I think the best thing to do is to try sanding a small patch to see how much effort it takes to get a colour you're happy with (remembering that it will get a little darker when you varnish). You can also try a bit of wood stain after sanding to see if you can get something you like.

I bought a detail from Screwfix as it was cheaper than hiring (http://www.screwfix.com/p/erbauer-erb105k-160w-detail-sander-230v/57939) buy hook and loop rolls of paper to go with it as its much cheaper than buying pre-cut paper.

You'll probably also want a sheet sander, I'd go for the 1/2 sheet size rather than the 1/3rd. Its not much more expensive and with so much to do you want as big a sander as possible for the big flat areas. Again you can gets rolls of sanding paper rather than the pre-cut stuff.

The sanding process is basically that you want to do three rounds of sanding starting with the least rough you can get away with (probably 60 or 80 grit) and moving up the grits and you want to get a better finish. Once that's done you need to clear up all the dust (there will be dust everywhere!) and stain (if you want) then varnish with three coats.

Total cost including the detail and sheet sander plus varnish and sanding sheets should be less than £150 but it will take you a good few days to do. A professional will obviously charge a lot for the same job so there is a big saving to be made.

If you're worried about how dark your hall looks I would really consider giving the whole hall a good coat of paint first as that made a huge difference to our hall.

ormus

you can bleach wood to make it lighter color. but some woods dont respond very well and others should never be bleached.
ie oak, beech and ash are ok.

Leif

It looks like oak. That amount of wood would cost a fortune today, so I think you are right to make the best of it. Professionals would surely charge a fortune or do a bodge job. I would be tempted to sand it by hand, using coarse paper on the stairs which are worn, and finer paper elsewhere. Yes it is tedious, but do a bit a day, and it will be done, albeit in quite a while. The parts that are not worn such as the bannister sides probably just require a light sand. It does depend on the finish that is already on. I suppose you could use a power tool, especially on flat areas, but with care. (My builder used a power sander on the new skirting board, and chewed it up. I had to sand the chewed up areas to get them back to a good finish.)

sugarwalsh

I think they are lovely stairs and wouldn't touch the balustrade. Just sand the stairs and varnish them. I think it is possible to do it your self, but would take a long time and you would have to be very careful to get a finish you which does it justice. Lots of sanding and sanding and staining/varnishing...

I would try painting the walls around, adding mirrors, lamp/more pendant lights, a glass front door and glass doors downstairs to allow the light to flow and bounce around.

Megan

Philippa36

We tried doing this in our last house, we got a quote from someone (I can't remember how much unfortunately) but decided we could do it cheaper ourselves. I ended up with a nasty eye infection - I don't know if it was related to the sanding but either way, I gave up on the job and we eventually carpeted the stairs and painted the bannister.

Your staircase is much more attractive than ours was and would look absolutely beautiful when finished properly but I would just say it is a very time consuming and fiddly job for an amateur.